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Handgun (or any gun really) Expectations....its a man-made item what's acceptable?

1K views 14 replies 13 participants last post by  cj 
#1 ·
Now with +1000 round through my XD sub I've had a few (four) FTE. Most of the rounds are store bought reloads (couple of different brands) for purposes of shooting at the indoor range.

For a while I've thought that's unacceptable and have the expectation it should never happen. Then I heard someone wisely overstate the obvious by saying that its man-made. Referring to the gun. And thus it's bound to not work correctly at some point. I think I agree. However, what about the ammo? ...it too, being man-made is going to fail.

So is it the guns fault or the ammo? I tend to think probably the ammo because the gun is much more a constant shot to shot. Other than ware, its the same.

Curious to know your experience and would like your perspective on what to expect....FTE and FTF per 1,000 rounds.
 
#2 ·
I would never use re-loaded ammo for self-defense. It might be ok for practice, but don't bet your life on it. Buy some good self-defense ammo and it should cut down on the FTE's Your grip sometime has something to do with FTE's, were you getting tired when the malfunctions took place, or did they happen when you were fresh and just starting to shoot?
 
#3 ·
4 FTE's out of 1000. Gun should be fine. Ammo or grip. If you have 4 out of 100 with different ammo then look for a failure
 
#4 ·
To me it would depend on when the FTE happened, When new ,no problem, pistols still working in . If just recently then look at ammo and ejector area. You might be close a new recoil spring too but should not be cause of FTE. If a random problems . Try to see if its the same lot number of ammo. A weak or low velocity load well cause your problem.
 
#5 ·
I sure would use reloaded ammunition for self-defense and prefer it over factory ammunition if I was the one who did the reloading.
 
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#7 ·
The only FTEs I've had were with my Taurus and Springfield with rounds that didn't have quite the punch that they were supposed to; just weak loads from the factory.

It happens. But, at just 1K rounds, that's a .4% failure rate. That's pretty impressive for ANYTHING man made.
 
#8 ·
As long as the bullet clears the barrel, weak ammunition isn't an issue with a revolver. Nor is less than perfect grip.

Sent from the admittedly paltry revolver cheering section here on the Forum.
 
#9 ·
I'd say your problem was with your store bought reloaded "I shoot it because it's cheaper" ammo. Nothing wrong with saving money but, I would never judge the performance of any fiream when shooting budget reloads in it.
 
#11 ·
He did say the reloads where for range only use. Did all/most of these FTE's come from the same package of ammo?
 
#12 ·
Its the reloads....
 
#14 ·
Now with +1000 round through my XD sub I've had a few (four) FTE. Most of the rounds are store bought reloads (couple of different brands) for purposes of shooting at the indoor range.

....

So is it the guns fault or the ammo? I tend to think probably the ammo because the gun is much more a constant shot to shot. Other than ware, its the same.

Curious to know your experience and would like your perspective on what to expect....FTE and FTF per 1,000 rounds.
I'm thinking it may be ammo-related, but that's not at all unacceptable for purely "range ammo" - besides, having some malfunctions on the range or in training is, in my book, ideal, as it allows you to work the basics of malfunction remediation. :smile:

My full-sized XDm9 is not going on 23,000 rounds. All accrued since late-November, 2010. One FTE that wasn't purposefully induced by me. Likely induced by the mud that the magazine/ammo picked up: a rather fun but extremely wet outdoor low-light class.

My true-carry, an XDm9 3.8 Compact, has had no non-induced FTEs. She has about 8,500 rounds on her, all accrued since late-January, 2011. I also have a dedicated range/training XDm9 3.8 Compact, which currently only has about 1K rounds on her (bought only a couple of months ago :redface: - don't worry, I've got 6 days of Chris Costa this summer, and I've already bought 4K rounds for just that set of classes :lol:), no malfunctions to speak of, yet.

So far, I've only shot new factory ammo.

Yep, a gun is just another man-made item. So's ammo. It's going to fail, at some point. Just know how to run the gun - and yourself - through such failures, and you'll be just fine. :smile:
 
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